Third Party Ad Tags in Ad Serving

What are Third-Party Ad Tags?

An advertiser places their creatives (Or Tags) in a third party server like Sizmek, Double click, Flashtalking to serve ads to users instead of serving it directly from their server. 

These third parties have better tracking, reporting, re-targeting and optimization capabilities. Also have reports like, path to conversion, reach & frequency reports. 

The same ad tag can be placed on multiple ad inventory space on different websites and apps. Hence easy to make creative changes in one place, do A/B tests, track Viewability and engagement. 

Header Bidding for publishers

What is Header Bidding?

It allows publishers to offer inventory to multiple ad-exchanges simultaneously before an ad-call is made.

Why do we need Header bidding?

Created to increase the yield for publishers. In the Waterfall method inventory was left unsold.

The Long Story

Originally programmatic was taken as a way to monetize remnant inventory in a pyramid inventory structure (waterfall method), with premium inventory reserved for direct-sold campaigns. Once the Premium inventory got exhausted and the visitor has not completed the frequency cap is when RTB kicks-in.

It is like selling the same thing to multiple people and lowering the price every time.

P R E M I U M    I N V E N T O R Y 

P R I V A T E    M A R K E T P L A C E 

O P E N  (R T B) 

Initially, less time was spent on revenue related tasks and most on admin related work. Google’s DFP  came to the rescue by introducing Header bidding which replaced Google’s “waterfall” method of connected demand sources.

Header bidding is also known as pre-bidding, where multiple exchanges can now bid for publishers' inventory. More bidders mean more demand for inventory and better prices. Publishers can control which sources can participate in the process.  

Header bidding is a resource-intensive option and also increases latency for the end-user and prone to malvertising attacks. But the opportunity was so great that it was accepted.